On June 18, 1888, legal counsel, who appeared and desired to be heard, filed their formal authority and the claim was at once duly investigated, and on June 22, 1888, a communication was addressed by the Secretary of State to the British minister, which sets forth the history of the claim, and a copy of which is herewith transmitted; and of this formal acknowledgment was made, but no further reply has been received.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 18, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I herewith transmit, in reply to the resolution of the Senate of the 11th instant, a copy of a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, relative to the pending treaty with China.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 1, 1888.

To the Congress: 

I have this day approved House bill No. 11336, supplementary to an act entitled “An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” approved the 6th day of May, 1882.

It seems to me that some suggestions and recommendations may properly accompany my approval of this bill.

Its object is to more effectually accomplish by legislation the exclusion from this country of Chinese laborers.

The experiment of blending the social habits and mutual race idiosyncrasies of the Chinese laboring classes with those of the great body of the people of the United States has been proved by the experience of twenty years, and ever since the Burlingame treaty of 1868, to be in every sense unwise, impolitic, and injurious to both nations.  With the lapse of time the necessity for its abandonment has grown in force, until those having in charge the Government of the respective countries have resolved to modify and sufficiently abrogate all those features of prior Conventional arrangements which permitted the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States.

In modification of prior conventions the treaty of November 17, 1880, was concluded, whereby, in the first article thereof, it was agreed that the United States should at will regulate, limit, or suspend the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, but not absolutely prohibit it; and under this article an act of Congress, approved on May 6, 1882 (see 22 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 58), and amended July 5, 1884 (23 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 115), suspended for ten years the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, and regulated the going and coming of such Chinese laborers as were at that time in the United States.

It was, however, soon made evident that the mercenary greed of the parties who were trading in the labor of this class of the Chinese population was proving too strong for the just execution of the law, and that the virtual defeat of the object and intent of both law and treaty was being fraudulently accomplished by false pretense and perjury, contrary to the expressed will of both Governments.